On Paper
by Lorraine Lacy
Summary: Yes, Mary knew that Sherlock Holmes was dead. At least he was on paper. She knew that just as much as she knew that with him back, John could never marry her. Johnlock
1. Sometimes I Just Don't

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

On Paper

He stood out because of his utter lack of anything that drew attention to himself. He was quiet, calm. He watched. An unassuming wallflower that observed, retained, and learned far more than people would have guessed.

He was modest to a fault and too polite for his own good. He had a temper to him, twisting and curling onto itself just below the surface of his demur demeanor; it just was so rare for someone to incur his wrath that people tended to forget that there. True, he stood up those that he cared about because of loyalty that was just as much a part of his personality as it was the very fiber of his being, but he was never one to raise his voice in order to protect himself.

He was honest, lying only when he thought that he was protecting someone that he loved. And even then, the guilt of the lie leaving his lips was always there.

He was quiet, cool, collected. Easily slipped into the background, almost like he could dim the sunlight when it hit his golden hair or ghosted against his tanned skin; almost forcing your eyes to skip over him.

His bravery is a scar from a bullet that is hidden under his jumper. It's in the way that he is unshakable.

His intelligence, he is a doctor after all, is hidden behind calm blue eyes as deep as an ocean, and a quiet disposition.

But that was what Sherlock loved about him most. All those things made John wonderful, incredible, loyal, loving, kind, brave and true. And all his.

John hid all these things from the world; hid all the things that made John _John_. He was so successful of hiding himself from everyone, but even he knew that one day, someone would look a little closer. One day, someone would look a little deeper and see that there was a lot more to Doctor John Hamish Watson than he let on.

Chapter One

Sometimes I Just Don't Like You Very Much

(Because You Broke My Heart)

Things were different now, as he knew they would be; as they should have been. You can't have a partnership stay the same when you were so close so quickly, and your friend, your partner, the other half of your soul, takes his own life right in front of your eyes. It can't be the same when the last things he told you, the important things, the special things, the things that he felt the need to tell John with the few precious lasts breaths that he would ever draw, were a complete load of shit.

And then he just appears almost three GOD DAMNED years later, all cheekbones and cool, saying TA DA I'm not dead.

Sherlock will always wonder if he should have expected to get punched in the face before being drawn into John's arms. And if he was expecting it, he surely would have expected John to avoid his face again. Luckily John was very adept at straightening broken noses. He always seemed to forget just how much strength John hid. But that was Johns fault. He made it to bloody easy for people to underestimate him.

John will always wonder how in the hell things could go pear shaped enough that he would meet, move in with, and befriend the stupidest smart person on the face of the planet. But maybe he just attracted dumb. Looking back on his buddies in the military and some of his ex-girlfriends, maybe he needed to put some serious thought into how selective he is about the company he keeps, but that was a thought for later.

During that time, cold dark alone always alone, John moved. He couldn't stand being the flat on Baker Street that forever smelt of the metal tang of copper nitrate and the earthy smells of young mold spores. It was too silent without the heart rendering early morning violin renditions of Tchaikovsky. He didn't have the heart to clear away the organized chaos that was Sherlock's things. Sometimes John would try to imaging Sherlock's Mind Palace, the ruthless organization that must have gone into it in order to know exactly where a certain piece of information was out of all the facts and figures that were the enormity of Sherlock's brilliance. Then he'd look around the flat and chalked it up to laziness, because seriously, what the hell?

The rooms felt too big without Sherlock's overly loud thinking taking up so much damned room that John, in rare moments, would feel claustrophobic.

Even the skull looked lonely without Sherlock's incessant chatter.

He would still see Lestraude. Not nearly as often as he figured that he should, after all, they actually did get on amazingly well despite Sherlock's best efforts. They'd go to a pub and watch a football game every now and then. More so when Greg was going through his divorce, but that was a connection that he still had that didn't hurt nearly as much as the flat did.

Sometimes when the hurt would get too much, the pints to frequent and his pistol like to much of a friendly face, John would go and sleep on Greg's couch just so that he wouldn't be alone with his stupid thoughts.

Sometimes when Greg was feeling alone, all of his earthly possessions barely making a dent in making the new, smaller, flat look filled, he would crash on the couch in John's new flat because he wasn't quite used to not having another living body shuffling around. He tried the skull thing. He just ended up returning it to evidence because he felt it staring at him and it just ended up giving him the creeps.

For a while there had been Mary in his life. Sweet Mary, wonderful Mary. Mary would have been his perfect partner if they had but met before Sherlock. But he had tried; God knew that he tried to make it work with her. He wanted so badly for it to work with her, but after a while even she saw that the part of him that she wanted most he couldn't give her. John simply didn't have any part of his heart left to give.

She had the last of her bags packed and by the door; most of her belongings already had been removed while John was at the surgery for work. Her engagement ring she left by the toaster. Yes, she knew that technically he could marry her.

Sherlock Holmes was dead. At least, he was on paper.

But as he stood in the door to the flat that they had shared for nearly a year and a half, a look of sadness and surrender, but not surprise on his face, she knew that he could never marry her.

She gently cupped his face in one hand as the other drew the leather cord out from under his shirt that he never took off of his neck except to bath.

In that look, that look of utter resignation, she knew. She knew that he could never marry her.

She gently kissed the matching gold bands hanging on that cord.

Yes, she knew that Sherlock Holmes was dead.

At least he was on paper.

She knew that as certainly as she knew that the earth revolved around the sun,, and as much as she knew that John Hamish Watson could never marry her.

Then she gently kissed his cheek before whispering in his ear, "goodbye, my dear John."

Yes, she knew that Sherlock Holmes was dead. Just like she knew that John could never marry her because, dead or alive on paper, Sherlock held onto parts of John that he never got back; parts that he could never give her.

He could never marry Mary because it wasn't just Sherlock that came back from the dead, so John's husband.


	2. Things Don't Work That Way

Disclaimer: Still own nothing

Chapter Two

Things Don't Work That Way

(And No, You Don't Get a Say In It)

"You'd think that you'd have something better to do like, oh say, attempting to not be an idiot and need to call me on every little moronic case." John just rolled his eyes behind Sherlock's back as he watched him shred into Lestraude and then proceed to turn just fast enough for his coat to flair out dramatically behind him before whipping out his magnifying glass and studying the victim's shoes. It was their first case together since, since, well. Since.

The dead girl in the flat seemed out of place. More so than just the fact that she was dead. She was young. John had to guess twenty seven at the oldest. She had a mass of black hair that was piled messily, what he would have considered sexily had she still had a heartbeat, on top of her head. She had a short, dangerously short, black pleated mini skirt on which, on closer examination had sheer black lace instead of a more conventional fabric inside the pleats. Not too much make-up, but the excessive black of her extremely long, obviously fake, eye lashes and thick inky eyeliner stood stark against her already pale skin. John sighed at the ridiculous height of the black pumps and thought that maybe she was trying to kill herself with those damn shoes.

"Well, that's interesting."

He finally turned his attention to Sherlock. "What's interesting?"

"She painted the bottom of her shoes red. Why would someone even bother going to the trouble of painting the bottom of their shoes red? Maybe it stood for something, no, better someone knew to look for the color red. She was expecting to meet somebody."

"Nope, I don't think that's quite it."

"Not quite it? What do you mean not quite it?" Sherlock gave him that look, that look that said that he hated being the last one to know something, especially when the idiots in the room know something that he doesn't and that's just not how it's supposed to work look. John loved that look, especial when he was the one that put it there.

"I mean you know when a new model of watch has just released but you never had the benefit of living with a female to make you notice, if still never appreciate, the finer things in life."

"John, that's brilliant."

John's brows furrowed and his pen stopped writing mid-word in his notepad. "But I've not said anything yet."

"Exactly, I was pointing out how brilliant you have to be in order to seem so loquacious and yet not have said a single thing of importance at all. I was going for funny." Sherlock deadpanned back.

John just rolled his eyes and gave up on attempting finishing the thought he was writing down. "I wasn't kidding when I said that you should stick with ice. We're in Belsize Park. She wanted to look like she belonged here, probably was trying to pick up a guy with money."

"What?"

John just sighed. "It's the shoes Sherlock. Shoes with red bottoms are Louboutin, very high end, very expensive. She was trying to fake having money herself."

Sherlock actually stopped his examination of her bracelets, cheap gold plated, to turn prideful eyes at John. "That my dear John, _that_ was brilliant."

And with that Sherlock was off and rattling off the state and condition of her jewelry and using that to deduce what small time boutique she visits, backed by her choice of perfume –because he did a study on the different types of perfumes because that's just what he does- and therefore gave an area from which she likely lived. An area which was definitely not Belsize Park. John left Sherlock's side to go stand by Lestraude on the outskirts of the room. He could feel the flush that Sherlock's praise had left on his checks and felt it growing even deeper in shade as he tried to convince himself that having Sherlock look at him just like that didn't make him feel like a schoolgirl with a crush on the captain of the football team.

While Sherlock was busy glaring at Anderson -for not realizing the wear on the tread of the victim's high heels no doubt showed she had been out clubbing on a regular basis and considering that is was a Friday night maybe he should reconsider where she had been murdered because obviously there wasn't enough glitter in the flat for it to have happened here based on the sheer mass of it that was sticking to her hair- Greg was talking to John in low whispers. Their shoulders brushing, heads bent together to keep their conversation private. Out of the corner of his eye Sherlock saw Greg's fingers lightly brush the slight lump that John's necklace made under his shirt and it took all of his will power not to physically grab him and break off every finger that had ever touched John.

John had moved back into 221b baker with Sherlock just under a week ago, not being able to afford the flat he shared with Mary on his own, or at least that's what Sherlock thought and John wasn't really of a mind to correct him, and it was different than it used to be. Sherlock wasn't expecting that.

"You know that you could come and stay with me whenever you need," Greg reminded John, having heard how awkward is was for him to try and get Sherlock to understand that no, technically they weren't still together and even though John wants to try, he just isn't quite ready yet. Sherlock wasn't the one waking up from nightmares of watching his husband kill himself, John was. Sherlock wasn't the one that realized that after such a long time apart, they weren't the same people that they were back when they were together, John did.

"You're off tomorrow, yeah? Mind if I come over and watch the football game? I'll cook something this time."

"Yeah, sure, that's fine. I'm in the mood for something with curry in it this time though. I can only stand Chinese so many times a month," Greg responded, a grin showing that he was teasing. John gave Greg's shoulder a squeeze and a smile before Greg walked away to make a phone call.

"And be sure to give Liam my best," he called over his shoulder with a laugh as he lifted the phone to his ear and walked out of ear shot. John turned his attention back to Sherlock just in time to catch the end of a snarl before Sherlock turned, making a point of ignoring him to study the mysterious woman's cuticles, noting the lack of well, anything, to show that she had struggled to prevent her death.

Lack of defensive wounds, undoubtedly drugged; possibly asphyxiation; petechiae are absent, so if strangulated, was definitely not violent.

Sherlock pulled down the high neck of her glittery gold sleeveless top. He gently turned her heard from right to left, noting the absence of any type of marks. He used to fingers to poke at her throat. Larynx not crushed. Hypothesis of nonviolence, correct.

He then swept two gloved fingers in her mouth. Mini magnifying glass in hand he examined the saliva. Particulates, yes; not quite opaque, extremely thin and malleable; ninety sever percent likely to be plastic, shopping bag, most likely. Proof of smothering as cause of death, most definitely.

John looked at his watch for what had seemed like the umpteenth time in the last hour. Bollox. He still had to make it across town for his meeting if Dr. Liam Graves' voice was to ever be heard again.

"Sherlock." He walked closed to Sherlock, trying to capture his attention which, for some very particular reason, he was giving wholeheartedly so Anderson. He stopped opposite a kneeling Sherlock, the dead club girl between them.

"Sherlock, I've really got to go." Sherlock just waved a dismissive hand towards him and continued giving Anderson his rapt attention. John gave Anderson a questioning look only to get a slight shrug and a shameful blush coloring Anderson's cheek in response before he turned his gaze back to Sherlock's.

John just sighed and started walking back to the main road to try and hail a cab. Sherlock had left him one too many times for him to even attempt to feel guilty for leaving the crime scene early.

When Sherlock finally made it home after proving that it was the jealous bartending ex-boyfriend that had drugged and then killed the club girl, he opened the door to the flat to find John at his computer; angrily stabbing each key like its mere existence personally offended him.

"Mycroft sending you job offers? I told him not to bother but he does seem to enjoy a challenge."

John's hand stopped mid-stabbing-key stroke and slowly turned his glare from his laptop to Sherlock. "Tell your damn brother that I don't want his job offers, I don't want his emails, and I don't want or need his bloody assistance!" He breathed in deep before letting out a long breath, letting his head drop into his hands.

"I don't see why you can't move past this thing you have with Mycroft."

John looked at Sherlock. Watched as he untied his scarf and shoved it into the pocket of his great coat and tossed it over the back of the sofa and started towards the kitchen.

"You wouldn't understand."

Sherlock chuckled low in his throat as he stood over the dining table, examining each of the two dozed Petri dishes that have been there for the past few days. "And what is it that I possibly couldn't understand?"

"Sentiment."

Sherlock continued as he was, not even looking up at John to acknowledge that he had spoken, but for all of his brilliance, he often forgot how John could read him when others couldn't.

He didn't realize that his hand had frozen in the air at the word for only the fraction of a second before he continued, seemingly unaffected. But John saw it and knew that he had to get it out now if he and Sherlock even had a remote shot in hell to make this, whatever the hell _this_ even was, work.

"You don't understand how hard this is for me. I don't do things like this. I don't talk about things. I blamed him for so long for giving Moriarty the ammunition to take you away from me. I blamed HIM for taking you away from me. Right now, right at this very second, I don't care if he was in on it. I don't care if he's the actual reason why you are still here and not actually half rotted in the grave right now. All I know is that for so long he was the only one on this planet that I actually had the choice to hold accountable for taking you away when, when there was so much, so much Sherlock. So much that I never got to tell you, so much that we missed."

"We were married, which we had agreed to keep to ourselves and yes, I did see Lestraude touch those rings, _our rings,_ through your shirt, so don't even pull the 'I'm the drab John Watson that wraps myself in the self-righteous cape of my morals and then looks down on the rest of the world act' because I know you. I know the darkness that lives inside of you that needs the death, the thrill, the game just as much as I do," Sherlock sneered back at him, one hand fisted in his trouser pocket, the other gesturing wildly as he stormed out of the kitchen and over to his armchair. He threw himself down into the seat where he angrily scrubbed at his scalp, making his already wild hair even worse before he picked up his violin and started to pluck at it. The room was eerily silent following his outburst, broken only by the unattractive _plink plink_ from him picking haphazardly at the strings.

John was hunched over the kitchen table. His knuckles white from how hard he was gripping the table in the effort to keep his anger, his _sanity_, in check.

"You're right."

Sherlock stopped mid-plink and, not sure he heard what he thought he did, asked John to repeat himself.

John shoved his fists in the pockets of his just a bit too baggy trousers. Sherlock felt a twinge of guilt at the weight that John had lost in his absence. He cocked his hip against the table, finally turned to look at Sherlock and started to chuckle. John had to wipe tears from his eyes as the chuckle turned into a full blown rolling laughter that had such an edge to it that it sent a chill down Sherlock's spine and his skin tingled with goose bumps.

As his mirthless laugh died, he scratched the back of his head, pulling taut the already snug v-neck jumper. He looked across the room at Sherlock through his eyelashes, the deep blue of the jumper matching John's eyes so perfectly that Sherlock's breath caught in his throat at how beautiful John had become in their time apart.

"You are right. We agreed that no one would know, well, other than Mycroft but that's because we both knew that there was no chance in hell that we could get away without him knowing about it anyways. I know. But I figured that once it had come to the point that he wouldn't leave me alone after I had drunk to much without either taking all of my ammunition, the gun itself, or would sleep on the sofa because he was terrified that one day I wouldn't answer his calls and he'd come over to find most of my brains scattered across the wall in your bedroom, well, I guess that I owed him some kind of explanation for why I was so broken up about a flat mate. Don't you?

"And you know what else? I had no friends other than the ones that I had with you and you didn't have any other than me so when you decided to **destroy me** I thought that I was going to die. And if I was being honest, if not for Greg, I probably would have so please, don't go and bring up promises that I broke when I thought that I wasn't going live out the month anyhow. What? You've nothing to say? I'm amazed. I've just rendered King of the Last Word silent. I guess I really can still surprise myself."

There was a long stretch of silence, then Sherlock started that god awful _plink plink_ing again as he tried to stare a hole through the rug.

"Oh no. No no no. You're jealous. Are you jealous? Really? Why?"

"You're my husband."

"No, I was your husband. 'Til death do us part' remember? And according to your death certificate I am a free man, a widower."

"And yet you still carry around our rings?"

John smiled. "Do you remember how I proposed?"

Yes, Sherlock did. John was never good with words, and Sherlock wasn't good with anything resembling sentiment, attachment, or feelings in general. When they had become lovers instead of just flat mates, they didn't talk about it. They didn't have to. It just happened, the feelings were there, and they were always there. They never had to say how felt about each other because they had an understanding that the other already knew. So when it had come to the proposal, John was doing an update on his blog and, when browsing through some of the comments that were left he came across one that said something along the lines of 'at this point, why don't you two just tie the knot and make it official.' John had pointed it out to Sherlock and said, "So, what do you think?"

To which Sherlock naturally replied, "I've next Tuesday open." No declarations of undying love and loyalty. There didn't need to be because it was already said so many times a day in every lingering look when they were among other people, in every lingering caress and soft moan when they were behind closed doors. The only reason why they had rings, even if they were never worn, was because John was a bit more of a traditionalist that he'd like to give himself credit for.

"I'm not doing that again Sherlock." Sherlock's head whipped up, the hurt to raw to be concealed, before he went back to trying to burn a hole through the rug with the sheer power of his will.

"If it was that god awful, then feel free to leave anytime."

John rolled his eyes. "You are so brilliant Sherlock that sometimes I can forget how incredibly stupid you are. I want to try this. I'm not making any promises; I'm not ready to just say yup we're married again like nothing ever happened. We've been apart for a hell of a lot longer than we were ever together. We need to get to know each other again if we want this to work. But not silence this time. You have no idea how much the thought that I never properly told you that I loved you had haunted me after. After."

"Attempt?"

"Yeah. That I can do."


	3. I'm Trying Not To Need You

Disclaimer: I still own nothing. I know, how depressing…

Chapter 3

I'm Trying Not to Need You

(And I Know You Don't Understand)

John sighed as he took a sip of his beer. The smell of the fish and rice with curry sauce that he and Greg had made together still lingered even though they had finished the meal some time before. He took another sip and relaxed even more into the sofa. "I forget how good this stuff is."

Greg let out a snort before settling in on the other end of the sofa, his body turned towards John's; their knees almost but not quite touching. "It should taste pretty damn good for how much you paid for this bloody stuff."

John just smiled into his glass. The price didn't matter and they both knew it. Utopia it was called, an American beer. He had fallen in love with it during one of his trips to New York a few years before but had only been able to get his hands on it recently since it was only released every two years. Then there was the cost to have a case of it shipped here when it was already 150 dollars American per bottle to begin with.

Greg knocked his knee against his to get his attention. "You have to realize that he's going to notice eventually that you aren't exactly broke anymore. I mean, how do you even begin to explain all the crap you've accumulated since he left? It's Sherlock. He has to notice that it's not exactly like you have a regular job, it's not like you have to leave the flat to work."

John just let out a soft chuckle before he took a sip of his beer and leaned his head against the back of the sofa and let his eyes shut. He didn't have to open his eyes to know that the other man was leveling him with a glare worthy of being made by a Holmes and John simply couldn't stop the small grin that graced his face.

"Spill. Now."

John sat up with a groan. His lower back ached from sitting at a desk all day. He set his elbows on his knees in a small attempt to stretch out the protesting muscles. "I still leave everyday by eight and I'm back before six."

"Where the hell are you going? It's not like you work at the clinic anymore." John just looked at him and smiled. "Are you kidding me? Sherlock thinks that you still work at the clinic? He's going to know that you haven't been going there. Hell, I'm surprised that he hasn't followed you yet just to see what the hell you're up to especially since I saw him talking to Anderson yesterday."

"I had forgotten about that. What was that all about anyways?"

"Well, I guess he had been hearing a name crop up quite a bit, so when he had heard Anderson and Donovan talking about this certain person, Sherlock asked him who it was."

"What was the name?"

"Doctor Oliver K. Harker."

John was silent for a beat as he stared into his glass. "Oh shit."

"Yeah. I'd say."

Greg left John alone to mewl his thoughts over and took their plates into the kitchen to deal with later. It wasn't until he had sat with another glass of beer and was already more than halfway through it before John had broken the silence.

"He did."

"He did what?"

"Today. He followed me when I left the flat."

Greg just sat there, blinking repeatedly as if he were in need a minute for the sentence to translate into English.

"So what did you do?"

John's grin grew into a smug feline smile. "I went to the clinic." Greg blinked owlishly at him before a he started laughing so hard he had tears rolling down his cheeks and his gut hurt. When he had finally settled down he grabbed his beer off of the coffee table and took a drink as he tried to catch his breath.

"Ok. I've got to hear this one."

-The Night Before-

John was sitting the desk typing, Sherlock didn't even know what, but he was doing it a hell of a lot faster than he used to, having learned to use all of his fingers to type and not just his index fingers for which Sherlock used to tease his mercilessly. The early afternoon sun was glinting off of the gold and slight silver in John's hair almost giving it an ethereal glow as it filtered through the thin curtains and the dust in the air.

Things were more comfortable between them than they were before their talk but there was uneasiness between them that had never existed before his fall. It annoyed him to no end.

He was sitting cross-legged on the coffee table, his own machine sitting in his lap. It was the same computer that he had before The Fall and he was sending plenty of not so sly looks of envy towards John's new laptop.

He would type furiously and glare at the machine as it was taking awhile to do, well, _anything_, and then he would look at John's shiny new laptop with more ram than was fair and would let out a long suffering sigh and try to look as pitiful as possible knowing that John would cave eventually and look at him.

"What Sherlock?" Sherlock's brow furrowed. John didn't even look at him. He didn't write the blog anymore so what could he possibly be working on that would make him not only hog the one decent machine in the flat, but not let Sherlock have a look at it at all?

"I need your computer. Now. It could be life or death. We both know you don't deal well with guilt."

"Yup. Just like we both know that you have a flair for the melodramatic and your machine works just fine for whatever you need to do." Sherlock just glared at him over the top of the screen but John still hadn't looked at him.

He let out another long _why in God's name are you making this so much more difficult than need be_ suffering sigh and John just rolled his eyes and smiled. "Just let me save what I was doing and you can have the bloody computer."

Sherlock grinned at his victory when John rolled his eyes and closed the laptop and stood to go and make a cuppa. He waited until he was in the kitchen and heard Sherlock get up to take his seat and scoff as the password screen before he smiled and started the water.

0-9487-023845

It was well after midnight when Sherlock had finally cracked the password.

Hahasucker

He glared at the soft glow of the screen. _Hahasucker._ He didn't get it. Why would John pick that to be his stupid password? He didn't often give in to the need to swear but he was so bloody close when he finally figured it out. He knew that he should have given up hours ago but after the 256th try he was committed; taking every failed attempt as a personal insult to his intellect.

He slumped against the back of the chair waiting for the desktop to open when an eye appeared on the screen and blinked at him. Sherlock leaned towards the screen, not quite understanding what was going on until a chipper mechanical voice startled him.

"Welcome John. Please lean forward as I administer your iris scan."

Sherlock blinked once, twice, and then reeled back as a red light lit up his face for a second before that chipper voice informed him that his scan did not match.

Then it dawned on him.

Hahasucker

"Son of a BITCH!"

Upstairs John smiled wide then rolled back over and fell back into a deep dreamless sleep.

09812745949

The following morning John woke up a little before six. He slipped his mobile from under his pillow were it was charging and into the inner pocket of his navy blue silk dressing gown before he went down to start his coffee. He had just started measuring out the grounds when a deep voice and hot breath against his neck made him jump just enough that he ended up dumping most of the grounds all over the counter. He put his hand over his heart, willing it to calm down before he growled out, "and what the _hell_ are you trying to do? Give me a damn heart attack?"

Sherlock opened his mouth and just as he was about to repeat himself –_boring-_ he was cut off by a buzz coming from John's robe. He had just enough time to see the name Stephen on the caller I.D. before John had answered the phone. "Good morning to you. Puctual as ev-"

The sound of the door closing behind John as he continued his conversation out in the hallway did nothing more that piss Sherlock off even more. Every morning. Every **bloody** morning at six John had received a call that he would always continue somewhere else. And every morning Sherlock could feel his blood pressure rise even more. He was gone. He was **gone**. What the hell right did John think that he had to go and find a life, meet people and form relationships with people that weren't Sherlock, while he was gone?

Fine. He picked up his mobile and shot off a text to Lestraude. If John wasn't going to tell him then he had other ways of collecting information.

**So. Stephen. –SH**

**Oh. I didn't realize that he had told you about him yet. Did the meeting go well? The one that he left the crime scene early for?–GL**

Sherlock stared at the screen. He fleetingly remembered John saying something about having to be somewhere around …sometime-ish, but there was a case so naturally he thought nothing more of it.

**Of course he has. I'm his husband. – SH**

**That's not what I meant. It's good to know that he's already that comfortable with you. What, with him having to wait and make sure that the shot clears everything up and all. Honestly, I don't think Stephen even told him that he was contagious. –GL**

…

**Excuse me?-SH**

**You moron. Do you really think that I know when you're trying to pull stuff out your arse to get information? If you want to know ask him your bloody self! –GL**

Sherlock glared at his mobile before tossing it onto his desk and flopping onto the sofa. Only when John came back into the room did Sherlock stop muttering under his breath about useless D.I.'s and their sarcasm that they use in place of wit.

John put his leaves to steep before he ran back up stairs to change for the day. He came back down minutes later. He came down in dark wash denim jeans encasing slender legs and a white t-shirt under a crimson deep v-neck jumper which to Sherlock's eye looked immensely like cashmere.

"John. You never answered me."

He look up from adding sugar to Sherlock's cup. "What?"

"Your computer, it has an iris scanner. The casing is an extremely thin, extremely light titanium alloy and is lined with carbon fibers. There is no possible way of getting the damn thing open without your eye ball or even pull the battery out without some code input via voice recognition. Your wearing clothes that, although are rather plain, are still not rather cheap. Your bank account seems in order given that you normally don't have 3000 quid but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to you being a doctor and having a steady job. On the other hand you have had frequent deposits from not only two accounts in Switzerland that are untraceable beyond those final deposits but from one in the Cayman islands that is untraceable as well. Obviously something is going on here. Do you even know how much a computer like that costs? You would never be able to afford something like that on a g.p.'s salary. I mean really John, an iris scanner? A bit of a flair for the dramatic don't you think?"

Instead of the guilt making John tell Sherlock everything like he expected it to John just smiled and handed him his tea before taking a seat in his armchair.

"You're right. I do dress a bit better and having a successful career that I've actually been able to focus on will do that. There are two reasons for the offshore accounts. One; Moriarty showed my just how precious my privacy is to me so I did what I had to in order to protect myself in the case where I needed to make myself disappear. And secondly; I'm very fond of pissing off your brother and it drives him up the wall not only knowing that he has no idea where the money in those accounts is coming from, but that there is no way for him to ever find out. And as for that computer, I've no idea how much that bloody things costs. It was a gift," he finished with a shrug before sipping his tea and eating his toast.

"It was a gift. That computer probably cost at least over 250,000 quid and you expect me to believe that it was a gift."

"Exactly." He rinsed his cup and left it in the sink before grabbing his coat off of the back of one of the chairs around the dining table. He shrugged into it and zipped it up, the soft leather tight across his broad shoulders and trim waist. Sherlock felt his breath catch and the deep ache of arousal low in his belly at the sight. "You see Sherlock, there is this kindly older gentleman that gave it to me. His name is Nathaniel Blomstrom. Does that name sound familiar to you?"

Sherlock thought hard, his eyes darting back and forth and he tried to locate the information without having to delve too deeply into his mind palace. His eyes widened with he located it, "he is head chairman at the Swiss bank that holds those accounts."

John smiled at his cleverness. "That's right. He is a personal friend which is why Mycroft never got far with any line of questioning he had regarding those accounts and a big fan of my blog which is why he gifted me with that beast of a machine. Now, if you don't mind, I've somewhere to be." And with that he was out the door with Sherlock on his heels, disguised as a grimy beggar, before John had even made it around the corner on his way to the tube.

Greg stared wide eyed at John. "Shit."

John shook his head and smiled. "Shit indeed. I had to go to the clinic after that, what with the git following me and all."

"So then what?"

John down the last of his beer and turned to Greg with a smile filled with so much mischief that it made him look so much younger that he really was. "I went in and from one of the examination rooms I peeked out the window and saw him cozy next to a dumpster in the alley across the way. So when I told Sarah what was going on, bless that woman she was more than willing to help me make my escape. It turns of that the new receptionist was running late on account that her sitter hadn't shown up yet. Sarah called her up, had her pick up a few coffees at that new café off of Columbine and cut through the alley. The poor girl is so jumpy that as soon as she saw him she threw the cups of coffee at him and started screaming 'RAPE! RAPE!' at the top of her lungs so Sherlock took off down the alley and I went out the back and caught a cab two streets over."

Greg was laughing so hard that he was having problems breathing, his mirth being so contagious that John joined in until they were both clutching their sides.

When he had finally calmed enough to finish wiping the tears from his eyes he said, "But you do realize that he will go back expecting to see you when you leave. He probably staked out at that Mediterranean place across the street. That's what I would have done."

"That's the beauty of it. I still have the flat that I was living in with Mary. He thought that I was renting but I had outright bought the place after Oliver's first book sales came through. So when he finally made it back to the restaurant I've already been in my study in Belsize Park working away. Then I came straight here."

"You don't think he'll be waiting there all evening waiting for you to come out do you?"

John just shrugged. "He could always do things the easy way and just ask instead of trying to stalk me."


	4. I Will Always Follow You

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 4

I Will Always Follow you

(I Just Wish You Trusted Me Too)

John had caught a taxi from Greg's back to Baker Street but made the cabbie stop a few blocks short. He needed the cool evening air to clear his head. Maybe Greg was right. After John had finished telling him about the botched stalker Greg had talked for quite awhile about how John had been with Sherlock before everything had gone to hell and how he had been since he had come back. "Because," Greg continued, making sure John was listening and not just letting Greg talk _at _him, whic1h was one of the Sherlockian traits that he wished John wouldn't have picked up on, "he didn't come back for anyone other than you John. There is no one in this town, hell, on this bloody Earth, that Sherlock would come back for other than you." Maybe he had been too hard on Sherlock. He had moved on with his life as best he could after the fall, which if he was being honest with himself wasn't all that well, but maybe he had been pushing him away ever since he came back.

He shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his jeans in an attempt to fend off the chill night air. He had forgotten his jacket at Greg's and his jumper was doing nothing to keep him comfortable. He was rounding the corner onto Baker Street when a flash of yellow across the street caught his eye. He stopped and a few seconds later as another car passed the headlights lit of that stretch of wall again.

**I believe in Sherlock Holmes.**

He couldn't help the smile that came to his lips at the sight. He remembered when he started to see that tagged everywhere. It was on the walls in the underground, spray painted in alleys and under bridges, at the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. He never knew that the picture in the back of a debut novel of an unknown author, whose face is never photographed, could start a movement like it did. He never knew that a photograph of a tattoo that said _I believe in Sherlock Holmes_ on the forearm of that unknown author would mean anything to anyone else but him.

That one photograph of Dr. Oliver K. Harker had changed his life. The stories that he wrote, the mysteries that were solved in them by a fictional doctor and his best mate, a D.I., true fans of Sherlock Holmes in a post-suicide world when even the media had turn their backs on anything that would give credibility to their hero.

No, John had never known how much life would change once someone other than himself was willing to put their name out there in defense of Sherlock's brilliance.

With a renewed sense of purpose, John started to walk the last stretch to the door of 221 Baker Street. He could see the Sherlock's silhouette in the window, the violin tucked under his chin. For awhile Sherlock was his home. 221b was where they lived, but it was Sherlock's presence that made the place feel like a home. And, if he could just grow up and learn to just _be _with Sherlock again, John prayed that he could call Sherlock home again.

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The moment John had opened the door to the flat the music stopped. Sherlock didn't turn around or acknowledge his presence, but just stood there at the window, bow set to string but not moving. He stood that way for long seconds before he finally spun around and stocked over to his armchair, setting the instrument across his lap.

"You gave me the slip."

John felt a small smug smile start to form on his lips but schooled his expression to one of being contrite before he sat down across from his former lover. "Yes, I did. And I am sorry for it. It's just that I wish you would ask me about what's happened with me since I left instead of pretending that it never happened."

"You gave me the slip."

John's brow furrowed in confusion. What was going on? Sherlock hated repetition. "Yes, I believe you said that already."

"You gave me the slip. You! How did you of all people manage to do that?" The look of incredulity on Sherlock's face and the utter disbelief in his voice was enough to take a bit of the sting out of the comment, but there was still enough to set John on edge.

"I guess even boring, predictable morons such as I can sometimes pull the wool over the eyes of the Great Sherlock Holmes. Well, either that or you've gotten dumber in your absence, and right now at," he made a show of consulting his watch, "2:15 in the morning, I'm going to bet on the later just because I can."

"You're different."

"And so are you Sherlock. You're a lot more sentimental since you've got back. You're a lot less prickly, and you're even doing things with your family, and that's great, I'm happy for you. I really am."

Sherlock just stared at John; his eyes boring into the other man as if that alone could bring all of John's secrets to light. "You're harder to read than you used to be. It's annoying."

"I thought my being boring and predictable was annoying."

Sherlock gave a long sigh, his hands roughly tousling his hair, leaving it sticking up in tufts that John had to make a conscious effort not to reach over and tame. "Not you John, never you. When I'm losing my head, when things weren't making sense I could look at you and see the consistence and know that I wasn't losing my mind. I could look at you and see the smart arse comment on the tip of your tongue, or the admiration behind your eyes before you gave it voice. You were my constant that I measure all the other variables against. Even when you weren't there, it was your voice that was my constant companion; your predictability that gave me a conscience. It was your voice I would hear telling me when I was being a dick or when I was being an idiot. Now you've gone and botch the whole lot of it."

The more the words poured out of Sherlocks mouth, the more John could feel his heart clenching in his chest. This, _THIS, _is what was missing their first time round. He knew that he wanted the words to go along with the sentiment but god, John had no idea how badly he wanted, needed, craved, those words.

And with those words, with his heart feeling so much that he has to put his hand over it to keep it from exploding with this desire to –_touch taste kiss oh God just be near_- Sherlock that the little lock that kept hidden the most vibrant, terrifying emotions in a Sherlock shaped part of his heart broke and he could no longer deny the love that he had tried so hard, and so unsuccessfully, to chain away.

"Now," continued Sherlock, "now I know nothing about you."

"Come with me."

"What?"

The idea hit John so suddenly that it was like a switch had been flipped and he suddenly realized what he had to do. "I've got this thing. Come with me. We'll leave in the morning and go to Ne-"

"No."

John just sat there blinking at him; the late night and the sudden interruption of his epiphany derailed his entire thought process. "What?"

"No. I'm far too busy right now to leave."

John's knuckles were turning white from his grip on the armrests. "Are you kidding me? Are you FUCKING kidding me? You aren't too busy to stalk me, you're not too busy to try and hack into my bank accounts, or my computer and you're not too busy to ransack my room, which I do know about by the way which is why I keep nothing of mine here but clothes, but when I want to tell you everything, when I'm offering you all the answers on a God damned silver platter you're too busy. You know what? I thought that you had changed. Nevermind. You're still as big of a dick as I thought you were back then."

John stood, squared his shoulders, and took the stairs up to his room to grab his black pea coat and was buttoning it on his way down the stairs when he looked up and saw the prick using his body to physically block the doorway. "Move Sherlock."

"I'm comfortable." And he looked it too; leaning on the door, one ankle over the other looking as if he could lounge there 'til morning.

"I'm not going to say it again. Move or I will make you."

Sherlock looked at John, really looked at John. The stretch of the fabric over his shoulders, the tautness around his upper arms, that curl of arousal that never seemed to fade when John was around was growing stronger the more Sherlock studied John's –_beautiful, sexy, perfect, made for Sherlock_- body. John was always fit but now it looked as if he had actually been working out, and based on his temper as of late and the nearly faded bruises of the broken nose John had given him, he would guess frequent visits with a punching bag had been made.

John could feel those eyes raking down him, observing, dissecting, deducting, and he felt that white hot anger of having this amazing brilliant wonderful person that he loved taking all this information and never just once asking for it to be given.

Sherlock almost jumped at the sound of John's fist hitting the door right next to his head. The sound of the door cracking sounding like a shotgun going off. His fist so close that Sherlock could feel the heat coming off of that beautiful pale slit of wrist that he could see before the coat rudely covered the rest of John. He cocked his head to the side, pulling his head back just enough to better focus his eyes on the skin, the last letter of –was that a tattoo?- showing before John realized what he was looking at and swiftly pulled his arm back, his right hand pulling down hard on his left sleeve to cover his slip.

"Is, is that a tattoo?"

This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't how he wanted Sherlock to find out. John knew that it was only a matter of time before Sherlock would figure everything out. He needed out of the flat. Now. In his desperation he grabbed Sherlock by the dressing gown, Sherlock's eyes widened at the impending blow when everything, his every thought, his very brilliant brain, his pride and joy, simply shut off as John desperately pushed his lips against Sherlock's.

Sherlock only hesitated for a fraction of a second before he threw himself into the kiss, trying to force every thought of apology, every feeling of love and loneliness, into that meeting of lips. He moaned as John pulled roughly at his hair, his own arms pulling John as hard against him as physically possible like he was trying to absorb John through his pores. John pulled him away from the door and slammed him hard against the wall, pinning his wrists with his hands. "I offered to tell you everything but you just cant trust me enough to come when I ask."

Before Sherlock could think of something, anything, to reply John kissed him again, biting at his bottom lip so hard that the pain shot right down to his hardening cock, making every bit of pressure that much more intense. John ground his hips against his, the pressure wringing another moan from his pale throat.

And then nothing, the weight of John that he had been craving so badly, the warmth, that damned delicious pressure against his aching cock was gone. He could hear the sound of the door being slammed as John left and headed out into the night.

The small "I'm sorry," was lost on the lonely flat as it softly echoed down the corridors.

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And I would like to thank my one sweet reviewer TXJ. Much love. You are probably the only reason why this is making it onto the web and not just getting typed and stored on the hard drive to get it out of my head.


	5. You Said You Wanted Words

A.N.: Hi there. Sorry this chap took so long to get out. There are two ways that I can see this story going but I haven't really figured which I prefer so I wrote and rewrote this chap about four times. It's not nearly as long as my other chaps but I felt that I stopped at a good place since I've been wanting to update but this way I'll be able to decide the exact way that I want this to go. I'm still not entirely happy with how it turned out but I'm frustrated enough with it that it is what it is and I guess that will be good enough for right now.

Disclaimer: I still don't own. Poor me…

Chapter Five

You Said You Wanted Words

(I Just Pray That I Can Find the Words That Will Make You Want To Stay)

Those first few hours after John had walked out of the flat Sherlock was curled up on the couch, wrapped up in his dressing gown and a blanket made of stubbornness to keep him company.

When those hours had continued to morning, morning to evening and evening to night and so on and so forth until John had been gone for three days, his blanket of stubbornness had turned into a cloak of miserable self loathing for having made John believe that he wasn't worth following.

He wanted so badly to distract himself from the feel of John pressed against him, the desperate ache that started low in his belly and spread to every recess of his body and mind, making his body become uncomfortably warm with just the thought of John's heat, God his _heat_, making his mind recall every bit of delicious pressure that John had incurred.

The thought of John being that close to him, close enough to touch and be touched and to smell and taste and the taste the _taste_ that John had left on his tongue before wrenching away the most blissful moment that Sherlock had had since he had to leave so long ago. Well, that thought just made his heart ache.

His need to physically be near John, to _have_ him, was to him as palpable a thing as his own shadow.

John had said that things needed to be different this time around, that he needed words.

Sherlock hated words.

He had amassed such a wealth of words in his lifetime, held over them a mastery that would put any poet to shame but when it came time to put his feelings towards John into those paltry, shortcoming things called words, he simply couldn't. There was no word in his native language, hell, _any_ language, that came even close to expressing the depth of feeling that he had in his body, in every fiber of his being. He was at a loss when it came to trying to express that John was even more essential to him than air, as essential to him as the cytosine or the thymine in his DNA that his mind, his most precious treasure, was comprised of.

Yes, the words were missing, but there was still so much love there. At least, he thought there had been.

Moriarty's nickname for him, The Virgin, wasn't right, he and John having already had a physical relationship for more than a year and then being married for almost six months. And anyone who had even slightly known the doctor would never make the mistake of thinking that John was one too.

But he was Sherlock's first, and Sherlock would be damned if John thought that things were wrong before because he couldn't find a single moment when he didn't hear John saying I love you with every breath and every touch.

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John was far from a blushing virgin before he and Sherlock had turned those searing looks and lingering touches into anything else, and Sherlock had happily called him a slut once after a few too many pints. But that had gotten John thinking. He knew in what direction their relationship was heading, knew that he was going to be Sherlock's first, but what did he have to offer in exchange for being deemed worthy of such a gift. True, he had never been with another man before, but he did have a girlfriend in Uni that loved anal sex so even though Sherlock would be his first male bedmate, _that_ particular door had already been happily and thoroughly explored. He knew Sherlock wouldn't care, but he did. He wanted to be able to give something precious to Sherlock that would be his, and only his.

That and the fact that he knew that if he wasn't careful enough he could turn Sherlock's first sexual encounter into a disaster that he might not be willing to experience again. He on the other hand had lost his virginity at seventeen and it was so much easier when his first time didn't involve him putting himself into a position to be hurt-

That was it. John had his answer.

Sherlock could remember everything about that night. He could remember wondering why John was so jumpy, stuttering and hardly able to sit still. He had told –yelled at- John to go make tea if it would get him to calm down; all the nervous vibes that he was shooting off were doing everything possible to render any attempt on Sherlock's part to concentrate useless. But Sherlock's demand had an effect on John that he couldn't account for.

Instead of jumping down Sherlock's throat about how it was his flat to and he could bloody well pace around it if he damn well wanted to, that deep baritone swept through John's body like a soothing balm and he smiled, all insecurities and nerves forgotten.

He stood in front of Sherlock; hand extended, and smiled a smile so perfect that all of Sherlock's thoughts came to a halt for just a moment in order to bask in the warmth that was John Watson, _his _John Watson.

Sherlock had lost his virginity that night. John was his first in every way.

John knew that Sherlock was his first and last this way because he would never be able to trust, to love, anyone as much as he loved Sherlock in that moment when he looked up into those eyes the color of tropic waters at dawn, his name on his lips, and felt the wonder that it was to be awash in ecstasy the first time that he was filled by Sherlock.

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"Earth to Sherlock. Come in Sherlock." Sherlock threw a scathing glance in Lestraude's direction before wandering around the house that had been broken into, the whole time pretending that he wasn't daydreaming about his and John's first time when he should have been paying attention to what he was doing.

Greg just rolled his eyes and followed after the genius. This was the seventh B and E that had happened in the past week where the door was busted, the invasion more than obvious, and nothing was taken. The flat owner wasn't the one to report it; she was at some conference in Switzerland. This one was reported by the landlord, as were all of the other break-ins. He had been trying to get Sherlock to come since the second but all of his calls and texts had been ignored until he had shot off a text to Mycroft, telling him to make his brother stop looking for John.

**John is abroad. –MH**

And that was all it took for Sherlock to stop his crazed search and finally become aware of the calls and texts that had nothing to do with John.

But as Greg watched Sherlock examine, and re-examine the flat before a far off look crossed his face, lost in thoughts of his John, and then get torn from his wistful thoughts and dropped back into reality, only to have to examine everything again, his train of thought derailed, Greg had finally had enough.

He rolled his eyes and grabbed Sherlock by the sleeve of that bloody coat and hauled him off of his crime scene, ignoring the furtive glances thrown his way by his team working the scene and the indignant remarks that the consulting detective was yelling as his was trying to get Greg's hands off of him. Greg didn't let him go until they were on the civilian side of the yellow tape and where he roughly shoved Sherlock towards the car before climbing into the driver's seat. He glared at Sherlock. "Are you going to get into the bloody car or not?" before Sherlock rolled his eyes and climbed in.

"Where's John?" the question had escaped his mouth unbidden, sneaking out and showing his distress before he had the chance to bite it back.

Greg only chuckled before replying, "You're the dumbest genius." The rest of the drive spent in silence before they arrived at Greg's flat.

Greg got out of his car and jogged up the few steps to the door, not once glancing back to see whether or not Sherlock was following him.


	6. All These Places I've Been

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter Six

All These Places I've Been and All These Things That I've Done

(Still Doesn't Compare To A Single Moment Spent With You)

By the time Sherlock had followed him into the flat Greg was already shoulders deep into the refrigerator, the gentle _clink_ of glass bottles being brushed against each other the only sound in the flat.

The flat was nicer than he expected it to be. Where he imagined dust, old case files, and the slight clutter of dirty laundry and half empty dirty dishes typical to bachelorhood, there was warmth in the warm cherry stain coloring the furniture and the thick white carpet. The walls were a striking crimson, the mantle white over a fireplace that just begged to be lit and huddled around. But, most surprising, were the vast amount of pictures that were on that mantle, on the coffee table and end tables, artfully displayed on the walls around sconces that were filling the room with a soft inviting light. There were enough to almost make the place look cluttered, but with all the happy, smiling, laughing faces, it just seemed to make the flat feel like it was opening up its arms and trying to encase you in a feeling of comfort and welcome.

It unnerved Sherlock like no other.

Sherlock was just about to inquire about his very not welcome kidnapping when, as he turned towards the kitchen were Greg was filling the kettle a picture on the mantle caught his eye. It was darker than a lot of the others having been taken at night. But when he looked at it, really looked, his breath caught in his throat at the beauty of it. John skin glowed in the light of the bonfire, the shadows in the hallows of his cheeks from too much weight lost made his stomach twist but it was beautiful in the contrast it provided to all that golden skin. His hair caught the fire and made the golden hue take on a slight red tint, making the blue of his eyes stand out more than they had any right to in the low light.

He was sitting on a piece of drift wood, his feet in the sand. The sand that was stuck to the skin of his legs glittered and gleamed in the firelight. Greg sat on a piece of driftwood that butted up to John's. He had a beer in one hand and his arm extended towards John, his mouth open in a big 'O' as he was singing to the man playing a guitar. And that was the most surprising bit. John, his wonderful John, frozen in that moment bathing in moonlight and firelight, wasn't looking at the camera when the picture was taken. Instead he was looking at Greg, that half-smile that showed the moment before he started to laugh, Sherlock's favorite of all of John's smiles was directed at Greg.

John cotton shirt was thin enough that even in the wan light Sherlock could just see the difference in color of John's skin and that of the dusky pink of his nipples and the scar on his shoulder. But in his hands, those glorious hands that could were so talented in both saving life and taking it away, was an acoustic guitar, the soft wood gleaming.

"He picked it back up after you left." The sound of Lestraude's voice almost made him jump, so enraptured with the picture that he didn't even notice his approach.

He gave a small 'hm' in acknowledgment before he started to really look at the other pictures in the room. There was a picture of Greg and John at the last Rugby World Cup, big grins in the fore, the field behind them, quite a distance away, looking like they were in a luxurious box instead of in the regular part of the stadium with the cheap plastic seats that John hated.

The next of John, Mary, Greg and another woman, probably whoever Greg was seeing at the time, and a smirking kid that looked like he was ditching class in sixth form, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

John, Greg and the same juvenile delinquent looking bloke whose arm was across the back of John's chair, his body turned towards John, all with a beer in hand toasting the camera with a window at their backs, The Sydney Opera House glowing in the dying light of twilight. He looked around and saw that same bloke in quite a few of the pictures in Greg's flat and in all of them he is either touching John in some way of his body is slanted towards John as if even unconsciously he put John at the center of his orbit.

"Who's that?" Sherlock asked, pointing at the guy that whose face he wanted to stab out off all of the pictures with a pair of scissors.

John, Greg, Mary, and _that_ guy all flinging water at each other in the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean.

John, Greg and _THAT _guy on a ferry headed towards Alcatraz Island. _His _arm around John's shoulders, fitting there like it had been there a thousand times before.

Greg and _THAT GUY_ hiding on the roof of a cabin in the woods drinking a beer, that bloke with a cigarette in his mouth, John on the porch below them looking as if he were about to commit murder.

"That's Stephen."

Sherlock saw red and his blood ran cold. "That's Stephen? The one that had been calling him every. Single. Morning?"

For a second Greg was taken aback by the sound of Sherlock's voice as in ground out the question through clenched teeth.

"One in the same."

He had black hair worn just a bit shaggy making him look young, his bangs almost curving down to one side almost touching an eyebrow. His eyes were a deep, piercing blue like John's, his skin lightly kissed by the sun. He had a warm smile that made you want to like him.

Sherlock wanted to help him loosen a few of those perfectly straight teeth that spoke of orthodontic interference as a child.

There was a single piercing in each ear, a faint curl above the collar of his shirt hinted to at least one tattoo. He was almost too thin and even Sherlock could see how others would perceive him as gorgeous, a poster child for all those alt rock bands that Molly sometimes listened to when she thought that he wasn't in earshot.

"What's he to John?"

"He handles the solicitors, the agents, the lawyers both here and in New York. He deals with all the paperwork for the businesses and the properties. He handles all the meetings and the dry cleaning and takes my place at those damn cooking classes that John's obsessed with taking when I can't go. He's John's back up guitar when he's blocked and his sounding board when he's got too many ideas running around that silly head of his. He's the one that would give me a call to meet John at the pub when he just needed time away from Mary and he couldn't help because he was in New York. He's John's right hand man."

That pulsing drum of envy of this _Stephen_ that was holding and touching John, HIS John, in the photographs had slowly curled into itself until it became a cold all-encompassing cloud of despair. He had been replaced. John didn't need him anymore. Didn't even want him there, but there was something niggling at the back of his mind, something that was trying so hard to make itself known. New York. Greg had said New York.

Something that John had said, something that he rejected som-

"_I've got this thing. Come with me. We'll leave in the morning and go to Ne-"_

"_No."_

The day before John had left he had asked him to go with him somewhere and he had said no, Mycroft's text that John was abroad. New York. That must have been what he was about to say.

"Why does John need _him,_" he couldn't help the contempt that was dripping from that word, "to handle anything? And why the devil is John in New York?"

Greg walked over to one of the end tables and picked up two books from the lower shelf. "These are why John had to go to New York and why Stephen is the one that handles everything for him."

He took the books from Greg with a slight sneer of superiority. "I don't do popular fiction."

Greg just rolled his eyes. "You wanted to know. Well, there are your answers."

Sherlock started flipping through the first one. They were murder mysteries written by Dr. Oliver K Harker. He was about to state that there would be no point in him reading them when not only could he be almost one hundred percent positive that they would yield nothing similar to reality due to how much intellect was required to commit an interesting murder, yet alone make one up and detail it enough to seem both complex and plausible at the same time when he had flipped over the back cover and saw the picture of the author.

He was standing in a meadow the dark of the tree line at his back, the contrast beautiful in black and white. He was dressed simply in fitted denim and a light v-neck t-shirt. He was looking down so that his face couldn't be seen, the hat he was wearing identical to the one John was wearing the night he was wearing that damned infamous deerstalker. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his jeans, the wiry build of his arms beautiful to look at. The long sinewy muscles taut under the skin even in such a relaxed position.

There was a tattoo on his left forearm, starting just below the inner elbow and ending just above the wrist.

**I believe in Sherlock Holmes**

The curly cues of the elegant cursive made his heart stop. John had a tattoo there. He closed the hefty book and just stared at it through new eyes. "My John wrote this."

"Yeah. He did." Greg waved an arm at all the photos on the wall. "All this only started happening about two years ago when he met Stephan and he had them published at a firm in New York. But before that? That whole first year he wrote. I think that it was one of the only things that kept him sane those first months. The third book is in the bedroom and another should be released in a few months."

"How many did he write?"

"That first year? I'm not sure exactly, three or four. He's working on the last one right now. I'm not sure what he's going to do when he finishes the series up."

"Stephan's an American isn't he? That's why he handles everything and why it was published in the States first."

Greg just gave a bit of a shrug as he took another swig of his beer. "That and he wanted to distance himself from his penname to give more credence to Harker's belief in you. He figured having another country be his birthplace helped a bit."

"Something's missing though. John seems to be wealthy now, more so than just by publishing a few books."

"Stephan took care of that too. With the money that John made from selling the first three at auction Stephan took to investing in stocks and real estate all over the world. The kid may look like he just got done sneaking a fag in the toilet at school but he's a damned wiz when it comes to numbers." Greg walked back to the kitchen and put his glass in the sink. "I had just about finished my shift when we got the call about those break-ins so I'm off to bed. You can just kip on the couch but I have a feeling you'll be doing more reading than sleeping. Night Sherlock."

He had almost made it to his bedroom when he heard Sherlock call his name. He made his way back down the hall and popped his head back into the living room. "What is it Sherlock?"

"What exactly is John to Stephan?"

The tone of Sherlock's voice damn near broke Greg's heart. " To Stephan John is everything."


End file.
